Identification of driving states for the evaluation of an intelligent cruise control system

One area in the rapidly developing field of advanced vehicle control and safety systems (AVCSS) is adaptive or intelligent cruise control (ICC). An ICC system is different from a conventional cruise control system in that it holds the ability to maintain a set time headway between itself and a lower speed lead vehicle. One such system is being deployed in a field operational test (FOT) in southeastern Michigan. In order to aid in the analysis of the vast amounts of data being collected in the FOT, a system of classifying any driving situation encountered by an ICC vehicle into a standard format was devised. This standard format enables the evaluation team to conduct driving performance analysis with aid without ICC at a lower level than the trip level at which data are currently stored. This standard format will also enable measurement of the frequency with which different types of driving situations occur. These frequency measurements will help the authors to determine if use of ICC changes the driving experience. The standard format consists of a set of driving states and transitions between those driving states. The variables range and rate of change of range (range rate) define the driving states. Identification of the various driving states, transitions and lane changes are achieved through video clip analysis (human) and rule-based custom software.